Anime Review | The Devil is a Part-Timer!
Leave your faith at the door. The Devil is a Part-Timer! is not for the religiously faint of heart, especially those of the christian variety.
Why?
Well that’s because this anime is about demons and angels, and it uses the devil’s names from the biblical books. The plot involves the Devil (Maou) and his 4 generals who are defeated by a holy hero. Before he is killed the devil open a portal to another dimension which takes him to a version of our modern-day earth as it is depicted in anime. Before he leaves he proclaims that he will return to his own dimension and exact his revenge on the hero and the world. However upon arriving on the world of earth he finds himself turned into a human, a form in which he lacks all the power he once had in his original world/form, and this change also seems to have affected more than just his physical appearance and magic. He seems to have taken on some other traits that were not present in him while in his original demonic form. He shows compassion and a lot more restraint than he had before. At the beginning of the anime he is joined by only one of his generals (Shirou), his most loyal follower, who stays by his side and serves him by doing tasks such as cleaning, cooking and taking care of the house. While on earth he seeks to find a way to regain his former strength, but as his magic is currently limited he must live a normal human life working at a fast food restaurant as a part timer, while Shirou plays “house wife”.
As the story progresses more and more demons, humans and characters migrate through the gate to earth, and things become complicated. One of those characters that migrates is his nemesis the hero, Emi. Emi is a cute young girl and as it so turns out she becomes a romantic interest of the Devil through a series unlikely events. She originally tries to do her duty and kill him, but when they are both attacked by a hidden foe they must put their differences aside and join forces. It is during this fight that she sees his compassionate side, and ultimately becomes friends with him and his rag tag bunch of companions under the ploy that she is keeping an eye on them. This is one of those aspects of this anime that I liked a lot. I liked that even though it seemed to be an all out action anime at the beginning it turned out to be a comedy, with a bit of herem on the side.
The moment that Emi was revealed I started shipping her and Maou.
As for why I liked them together, well that is a personal thing. I like spunky girls, and Emi is 100% spunky. Both her and Maou are also well illustrated in this anime. The animators used a beautiful, clean, vibrant look that I rather like in my anime. The girls in this anime were well drawn to be super cute, especially Emi. She’s spunky, cute and surprisingly well adapted at living as the regular humans in this world do. Her relationship with Maou was one that found myself enjoying quite a lot. In fact I was shipping them from the the moment they met under an umbrella in the rain. That scene is probably the quintessential scene in the series, and it is one that proves to be very important all the way to the last episode.
This anime shines in more ways than just the looks department. The music gets epic every time Maou uses his powers, which sent chills down my spine every time. It boasted a great soundtrack, and only suffers from a pretty generic sounding intro. I found myself liking the closing music a lot more than than the intro, but that’s not to say its bad, it’s just that it sounds a lot like something I’ve heard before many of times in other anime.
The voice acting was also good. I watched it with the English dub and I didn’t once feel the need to rip my ears off. Each character’s voice was well represented, and matched their personality perfectly. If I had to choose my personal favorites they would be; Emi, Maou and Shirou. I didn’t try the Japanese dub so I’m not going to compare the two, but I’d like to assume that it’s just as good if not better.
All in all I found this anime to be quite entertaining. It took no issue with mocking the characters, and their misunderstanding of this world, and that helped it shine. I also liked the alternative way in which they portrayed The church. Casting them as the villains and making demons more kind and compassionate was a risk that I think payed for the show, however as I mentioned in the first sentence of this review this anime may not resonate with some viewers, because of the names of the Devil and his generals. I’m not sure if this is because of a cultural thing in japan where they are accustomed to representing demons/ oni in their media in different ways than in the west, but over here it’s not a common thing to portray them as the good guys, especially when using their exact names from biblical text.
Biblical names aside there was also no payoff for those romantics watching (myself included). I was expecting maou and Emi to form/ address some kind of romantic bond, but by the time the credits rolled on the 13th episode there was no such occurrence. This however leads me to believe that this will be addressed in a possible second season.
Keep those fingers crossed 😀
If you don’t mind that and are ok with the names of the devil being in a light hearted anime then I recommend checking this one. If not just stay away like it was the plague.
If you’d like to hear more about my thoughts about this anime, then I suggest you listen to the Buttonsmashers podcast & Hopelessly Animanic
